Now is not the time to quit

America needs to push the limits and head into deep space

July 21, 2011|By Storer H. Rowley

English poet Robert Browning wrote that a person's "reach should exceed his grasp." That's always been the story of America, from our pioneers to our astronauts.

Exploration is in our DNA. We have been reaching for the stars for more than half a century in space-faring alone, limited only by our collective imagination, the dangers of highly experimental space missions and the constraints of earthbound budgets.

Yet, with space shuttle Atlantis returning Thursday from its final 13-day mission to the International Space Station, there is no specific national plan to launch Americans back into space from U.S. soil — no plan to head back to the moon, no urgent strategy or timetable to head to Mars or even an asteroid — for the foreseeable future.

That is not A-OK. It's unfortunate for a nation that led the way in space exploration and dominated science and technology with its innovation and inspiration. The space program led to a generation of students inspired to pursue technology and science. It helped lead to inventions like GPS in our cellphones, global satellite communications and medical imaging. It spurred private industry and job growth, and the kind of discovery and inspiration so vitally needed now as American students try to catch up on science and math skills in an increasingly competitive and globalizing world.

Atlantis sped homeward on the 135th and final voyage of the 30-year space shuttle program. When it returns to Earth, heaven can wait for now, it seems, or at least the final frontier and the future of manned spaceflight in America. U.S. astronauts are stuck with only one near-term option, hitching expensive rides on Russian rockets, to get back to the space station. Without a clear U.S. goal and a timetable to achieve it, many Americans worry about the future of the U.S. space program.

America is hardly at square one, but in the race for space, it has led the way, so this hiatus of five or 10 years, maybe more, is deeply troubling.

Despite early setbacks, President John F. Kennedy launched this nation in 1961 on a path "to take a clearly leading role in space achievement." From the Mercury and Gemini programs to Apollo moon missions and Skylab, the U.S. was out front for 50 years. That's a U.S.-conceived space station still aloft in low-Earth orbit. The last footprints on the moon were left there by Apollo astronaut (and Chicago native) Eugene Cernan in 1972, nearly four decades ago.

The Obama administration is hardly standing still. President Barack Obama has called for a $6 billion increase in the NASA budget in the coming years. He advocates for the commercial development of a new heavy-lift rocket and the perfection by NASA of a multipurpose Orion crew capsule — aiming to send crews on deeper space missions, perhaps by 2025. But not to the moon again — been there, done that. And maybe not to Mars until the mid-2030s.

But for three well-known Apollo astronauts — Neil Armstrong, James Lovell and Cernan — the worry is that "America's leadership in space is slipping." In a recent, widely distributed column, they argued, "NASA's human spaceflight program is in substantial disarray with no clear-cut mission in the offing. We will have no rockets to carry humans to low-Earth orbit and beyond for an indeterminate number of years."

Critics of NASA argue that with America facing the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, this is hardly the time for an expensive new mission to explore the universe.

But Obama calls this a false choice, and it is. Yes, we have to fix the economy and lower the deficit, the president said, but "for pennies on the dollar, the space program has fueled jobs and entire industries. (It) has improved our lives, advanced our society, strengthened our economy and inspired generations of Americans." That's a compelling argument.

It is also true that there is no longer a Cold War to fuel the competition for space. In fact, it is now more like a collaboration with other countries, and the International Space Station is hard evidence of that.

And, yes, it's dangerous. These are highly experimental research missions. Look no further than the loss of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003. As a young reporter, I was among 40 national semifinalists in the competition to be the first journalist in space when the Challenger exploded and fell from the sky.

But that's the whole point. We are a species that needs to explore, to push the limits, to risk life and limb, at times, because that is our nature. To have U.S. astronauts grounded indefinitely from rocketing aloft from U.S. soil, or even for an extended hiatus without a clear end, is not the kind of American vision and leadership that lifted us to the Sea of Tranquility on the moon.